ll have
to speak. In almost every ballad of his, however slight,(121) in the
_Beggar's __ Opera_(122) and in its wearisome continuation (where the
verses are to the full as pretty as in the first piece, however), there is
a peculiar, hinted, pathetic sweetness and melody. It charms and melts
you. It's indefinable, but it exists; and is the property of John Gay's
and Oliver Goldsmith's best verse, as fragrance is of a violet, or
freshness of a rose.

Let me read a piece from one of his letters, which is so famous that most
people here are no doubt familiar with it, but so delightful that it is
always pleasant to hear:--

"I have just passed part of this summer at an old romantic seat of
my Lord Harcourt's, which he lent me. It overlooks a common
hayfield, where, under the shade of a haycock, sat two lovers--as
constant as ever were found in romance--beneath a spreading bush.
The name of the one (let it sound as it will) was John Hewet; of
the other Sarah Drew. John was a well-set man, about
five-and-twenty; Sarah, a brave woman of eighteen. John had for
several months borne the labour of the day in the same field with
Sarah; when she milked, it was his morning and evening charge to
bring the cows to her pails. Their love was the talk, but not the
scandal, of the whole neighbourhood, for all they aimed at was the
blameless possession of each other in marriage. It was but this
very morning that he had obtained her parents' consent, and it was
but till the next week that they were to wait to be happy. Perhaps
this very day, in the intervals of their work, they were talking
of their wedding clothes; and John was now matching several kinds
of poppies and field-flowers, to make her a present of knots for
the day. While they were thus employed (it was on the last of
July), a terrible storm of thunder and lightning arose, that drove
the labourers to what shelter the trees or hedges afforded. Sarah,
frightened and out of breath, sunk on a hay-cock; and John (who
never separated from her) sat by her side, having raked two or
three heaps together, to secure her. Immediately, there was heard
so loud a crash, as if heaven had burst asunder. The labourers,
all solicitous for each other's safety, called to one another:
those that were nearest our lovers, hearing no answer, stepped to
the place where they lay: they first saw a